Sinking
by I Can Kill You With My Brain
Summary: River's sinking, down through the cold and the dark and the shadows.


**Sinking**

River's sinking, falling downwards into a pool of water, deep and dark and pulsing. Currents catch her and swirl her around, take her in but don't spit her out, don't release her to be free and fly. So not a pool, a river?

Spinning, words and images flashing before her, taunting her. She reaches for Simon, hand outstretched, but he crumbles into dust, and a bird flies away, feathers blood-red with darkness dripping from them.

Or are the feathers dark and it's bleeding? Is a zebra white with black stripes or black with white stripes? Old adages, jokes from Earth-that-was. What's black and white and red all over? Doesn't apply here, bird is not white. Why can't something fit?

Puzzle pieces are falling past, never fitting. If one piece lines up another disputes it. Lines are curly, not straight, and thoughts jump from point A to point F to point Z and back to D. Lost all logic, cut out with their needles and scalpels, white staining red gloves. No, red staining white gloves? purple? green?

A wave breaks over her head and she's underneath, staring through the water. It's dark and murky, vague shapes moving past her, shadows flitting just out of sight, things you can only see from the corners of your eyes.

Her lungs are burning and she resists the urge to gasp. She flaps her arms, but the water is thick and sticky, though her hands cut through it easily. Defies all laws of nature, not natural, like her. It clings to her, dragging her forever downwards, never letting her surface.

She breaks through and gasps for breath, arms struggling to keep her upright, on top, floating. More images flit past, of her giggling as Simon splashed her with soapy water, of her and Simon wading in the stream outside their house, their clothes wet and trailing behind them.

Simon turns to her and smiles and she falters, losing her place in the rhythm of the current and she falls again, back down into the water, into the blackness. She gasps, and her lungs are flooded with thick, oily, burning liquid.

She chokes, writhing in the water, feeling the burn course through her body. The shapes become clearer, men with needles and scalpels and electrodes. Blue is twining ever closer and she's screaming, bubbles cutting through the water like a knife.

She prays for Simon to rescue her, pull her out, but she's too far down and he can't find her, hear her. Kick and punch and flail and she's back up, gasping and coughing and spitting up the burning fluid in her lungs. It comes out in a stream, black and smoking and writhing in the air.

Simon's back again and he's reaching for her, hands solid and sure and warm. She grabs for them, fingers slipping through his, slick with water, before finding purchase. He pulls her up, dragging her out, face white with exertion.

Things grab her feet and legs, dragging her back down so her waist is level with the water. They're slimy and cold, twining sinuously around her as they yank. Pain explodes through her and she's crying and pleading, clinging to Simon like a lifeline.

Things are dancing around her now, twisting and turning, a blur of colors and smells and sounds. She's gone now, her mind and body wandering through a cold metal ship, _Serenity_ she thinks. People are talking to her, but she's floating again, her body dissolving into specks of gold and she vanishes and reappears, reassembling in a different room, a different part of the ship.

She looks down and screams. She's missing pieces, holes peppering her body. She can see through herself, see the other wall. Hold up a hand, but there's a part missing in the middle, blue shimmering around the edges.

Then there are voices and Simon is there, patching the holes with bandages and medicine, so much medicine. It doesn't work, the bandages crumble away and the liquid medicine dissipates before it even touches her skin, so that he's just injecting her with an empty needle, filled only with air.

Then she's gone again, vanishing and reappearing. She's in the cargo bay, and she's whole, no pieces missing as she throws the ball down and watches it back up, scooping up the jacks as she plays with Kaylee.

Laugh, smile, drop, scoop, feel the dread growing in her stomach as she waits for herself to vanish again. What's the point of being happy if it's just going to go away again? She hates it because she can't prevent it, it just has to happen.

Gone again and now she's in a dingy tavern, but she's not alone. Numbers twine in the air in front of her, telling her what to do, how to act. She can't stop it so she follows it, lets it take her over. She's been handed a guideline, a map. Turn here walk there.

She spins and takes a step, following the directions whispered in her ear. She grabs someone, spinning with them for a second, dancing, before discarding them as a poor partner and moving on.

She feels cold ceramic in her hand as she dances around, snatching people from the throng to spin around. Looks down to see a cup. Moves to throw it and a parabola arcs across the room, showing her where to throw to get the desired effect.

Then more words are coming, crowding out the numbers and she's falling, crumbling away before she touches the ground and leaving behind a pile of ash.

And she's back in the pool, cold water swirling around her and Simon pulls her one way and her monsters pulling her another. She can feel her hands slipping as she stares up at Simon's white face. She gives him a smile and lets her hands slip away, white slithering through alabaster, a green snake through the grass.

She falls backwards, hitting the water with a splash and sinking backwards and downwards, ribbons tracing their way in front of her, closing off the world, unleashing the monsters that haunt her behind closed eyes.

Down down down. She smiles as she falls, and wonders, through the cold and the dark and the shadows, that when she's done sinking if there will be a bottom.


End file.
